Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Training or torture? Your choice.

Our company utilizes a construction-specific type of accounting and project management software to pretty much run everything. As a matter of fact, we've been used as the test group for most of this company's new products in development for several years.

This can be a good thing, or this could be a bad thing. One big problem is that our company does things a little differently than most construction companies. As in, "we do everything that makes us feel good versus the way things really should be done."

So the software company came out with a new module to handle change orders and one small group within our company started using it to see if it met our needs. The other problem with this whole process is that the software can be tweaked and customized to each customer's needs - which may seem good, but then presents problems when training people how to actually use the stupid thing. We are supposed to go for training this week on the new module, and have already been warned that the training will teach us the basics, but the instructor can't actually train us on anything specific to our company nor can she answer any questions related to our version of the program.

So there's that.

Much to my delight, I found out today that the instructor for the class would be my former arch-nemesis Kathy from my first "real" job out of college. I used to work for a huge mechanical contractor, and this woman ran the administrative part of the service division while I worked under her buddy in the new construction division. Not long after she came to work at the company, her husband left her for his secretary and Kathy was left alone with two kids, a huge house, and a shitload of alimony. Add to this the fact that she evidently did very little all day long but apparently either kissed the right asses or was blowing somebody enough to earn a huge paycheck for doing absolutely jackshit all day. And she spent most of her time throwing herself at any man that came her way. At one point, she kind of buddied up to me and I probably revealed a little too much about myself and that ended up biting me in the ass....

Now, at that time I was single and fancy-free and had an enormous crush on one of the guys that I worked with. He was quite a bit older than me and had never been married, but we grew very close and I was convinced that he would eventually get up the courage to ask me out. Oh, and of course we would get married and live in his log cabin and have 20 kids. And I made the biggest mistake ever and told my buddy Kathy all about my crush on the guy.

Well, once Kathy caught wind that I liked this guy, she did everything but strip nekkid and throw herself spread-eagled on his laptop. And eventually they hooked up. I was so angry that I would lie awake at night plotting her unfortunate death by being crushed by a truckload of duct sealer.

Of course, now I look back and laugh because the guy is a walking emotional trainwreck and I probably should thank Kathy for saving me from a lifetime of disaster with him. But you know about me and how I hold a grudge...here we are 13 years later and I have to admit that I'm still a little pissed at her for betraying my trust that way.

So today, the first round of trainees came back whining about what a shitty job Kathy did teaching the class - basically all she did was read word-for-word out of a booklet that one of our employees had put together about the new software module. She couldn't answer any questions at all. All the way home today, all I could do was think about how I want to torture her tomorrow by asking really complicated questions and making her look like a dumbass. Did I mention the thing about grudges?